John Utley -- energy man;

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John Utley-
Energy Man
It you are anywhere near John Utley it is
hard to miss him. Six feet three, wavy hair,
long stride, and with a smile hiding just
behind his eyes—they all make him a figure
easy to notice and to remember. However,
it is John's professional specialty that makes
him unique in Haskins & Sells.
As partner in charge of the Firm's Public
Utilities Department, he directs a group of
specialists who are responsible for
coordinating and developing our practice
relating to public utilities across the country.
John and four others working with him are
located in Washington, D.C., although they
are organizationally part of Executive Office.
Staff members in numerous practice offices
relate closely to John and his management
group in the performing of audit, tax, MAS
and other special services for utility clients,
John's job in H&S is different because of the
special nature of the industries that have
become his life. Customarily, clients of the
Firm are served by practice offices at or
near the client location, with participating
work by other offices where the client has
branches or subsidiaries. But public utilities,
being regulated by state commissions and
by federal bodies, face common problems of
financial management unique to regulated
industries. In solving these problems it is
important to have available a compact, expert
group within the Firm to provide answers
which have national significance.
Furthermore, the public utilities are, as the
term suggests, the people's business.
And their accounting is subject to scrutiny
by government officials, opinion-makers,
pressure groups and the man in the street
who pays the nation's utilities bills. This
creates the need for a special kind of
expertise in financial management, where
the objective is to analyze in great depth and
with foresight the operations of companies
on whose continued fiscal good health our
highly technical society depends.
Discussing utilities accounting in general
and electric power companies in particular.
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John Utley is frank with H&S Reports
about his deep concern for the future:
'The public utilities industry is probably in
the worst straits today that it has ever
been in." he says."The main problem is the
unavailability of capital at reasonable cost.
We are a country that runs on electrical
energy. Without it, in sufficient quantity,
we are nothing.
"The market value of utilities stocks is down,"
he continues, "because people don't have
much confidence in public utilities stocks
and so they don't buy. But the utilities must
have the capital to provide for our needs
tomorrow, and the day after tomorrow.
"There are 214 privately owned Class A and
B electric utilities in this country, and the
capital requirements for them are immense.
There arc other, smaller companies, but
these 214 are the backbone of the industry.
In the next twelve years it is estimated that
they will need upward of $293 billion in
external financing and S160 billion in internal
financing. That outside money can come in
only if utilities are earning the returns
necessary to attract such capital.
"In the past, it was commonly believed that
to defend the public interest you took an
adversary position toward the utilities.The
idea was that 'low is good'—meaning that
low rates were in the public interest. But now
we are in an era where the proper notion of
public interest, I am convinced, must center
on a level of rates which will assure the
continued viability of our system of power
supply. This obviously means higher rates,
"The plant planning and building time has
stretched out. It takes longer now to build a
facility than it used to, and there is more
delay because of the environmental
requirements that companies must satisfy.
So the need for planning well ahead is
much greater than it was a few years back."
What is the role of our Firm's Public Utilities
Department in this complex of regulated
business? "The very reason we in H&S are
involved in this industry is to provide a
broad public function," John says decisively.
"We deal with our own client companies, of
course, But we also deal with federal
regulatory bodies like the Federal Power
Com mission, the state regulatory agencies,
the counties and municipalities, and with
other interest groups. We want to remain and
be known as expert, impartial, nonpartisan